Closer Look: Class Roles

Class roles - they've had them since the beginning of roleplaying games, but not since recently have they become so well defined. I first saw it in World of Warcraft, where depending on your class and specialization, you would end up doing a certain job in the group. What was different in WoW than in most of the other RPG's I've played was the fact that when the enemies got tougher, the opportunity to pull of multiple roles at once diminished greatly. This is what I mean by clear definition. There is always a gray area, and some games have a much larger gray area than others. I personally have enjoyed what I've seen of 4E's take on class roles though.

First off, a comparison:

2nd Edition: In 2nd edition D&D, the classes were already divided into different categories. You had the Fighter, the Thief, the Cleric, and the Magic-User. Under these groups were the specific class options, and sometimes you could only be one if you rolled the appropriate stats first. This is obviously no longer the case. However, what 2nd edition had was some really cool versatility among the different classes. Very little was streamlined in this ruleset, and the rules were often thrown asunder in favor of something more fun. These were good times, but unfortunately it lead to some horrific consequences. Classes were not balanced for gameplay in 2nd edition, it was a lot more about the roleplaying in those days.

3rd Edition: 3E was fun, but taxing in the long run. 3rd was the edition that made character creation the most utterly ridiculous fiasco in the history of dungeons and dragons. You were no longer spending hours figuring out a cool character and background, you were spending the hours doing math, and strategically picking skills and feats to avoid being gimped at higher levels. Under these conditions, it was nearly impossible for your character to truly find it's place in group combat. You were more or less forced into being utterly superior at your role, or you were able to do almost nothing. The classes themselves were built with a lot of customization in mind, but if you customized wrong, you could become entirely ineffective.

4th Edition: Now we see where MMO's have finally influenced our tabletop gaming. It is no secret that Blizzard and D&D have been basing things off of each other's stories and lore for many years now. D&D was first, of course, but WoW and other RPG's have managed to make a good impression on the design of our new tabletop foray. The Defender is a tank, the Leader is a healer, the striker is your DPS, and the controller is your CC. DPS means Damage Per Second, in other words, you are able to do a lot of damage to a single target without issue. CC means Crowd Control, this is someone who can take an enemy out of commission while the rest of the party takes care of the dirty work. And it really doesn't get much simpler than that.

So there you have it, my opinion of the major differences between the past three revisions of the dungeons and dragons rules in terms of class roles. Although, there is a key point that I have yet to leave out. 2nd Edition had a lot of flexibility in terms of the DM being encouraged to discard and change the rules per convenience and fun, 3rd gave people the customization they desired while giving everyone equal ground to stand on, but 4th did something great to stand out. 4th Edition now gives the players a clear goal to accomplish during encounters while giving them an extremely reasonable amount of customization. And the customization they've given them is in such a way that it is almost impossible to "gimp" or ruin your character in the long run. This is the keystone to the new edition.

There is little more I have to say for now.

-Lance of the Hill People